


Collapse the Light Into Earth

by UmpBumpFizz



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Also there is going to be a loooooooot of nostalgia for 90s kids who liked Nintendo, Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Dirty Talk, Dominant Ben Solo, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Human Trafficking, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Medical Trauma, Non-Graphic Violence, Non-Sexual Slavery, Not too much detail though, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reader-Insert, This is a weird mashup of reality and Star Wars, Video game jokes and references galore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-10-30 16:40:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20775854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UmpBumpFizz/pseuds/UmpBumpFizz
Summary: "You thought back to the night you'd met him. You were five, he was six. Your memory of your arrival at the Organa-Solo home is fuzzy, but you do remember how terrified you were to be away from home without your parents; how you felt like you had to throw up, crying so hard you'd gasp for air between sobs. Leia, sweet thing that she was, had made you a warm drink with a mild sedative in it while Ben got to work building a fort out of pillows and blankets and setting up a perimeter with all his soldiers and monsters. You had wrapped yourself up in your own favorite blanket at the back of the fort, finally calming as the drink worked its magic, settling down to sleep behind him while he sat with a toy gun, guarding the entrance. You woke up the next morning with a new best friend."If only he hadn't gone missing.





	1. Chapter 1

Ben Solo is missing, presumed dead. The call was a gut-punch, a blow from which you weren't sure you'd ever recover. It's been weeks now, and everything still feels surreal. Every so often it'll hit you; you'll think to yourself that yes, this is life now. This is the new reality, and _Ben isn't in it_. It's more than any thirteen-year-old should ever have to endure, and whatever happened to him, to them- Leia had been found dead from a single blaster shot to the head- wasn't anything that should ever have happened to anyone.

But it did happen. They went hiking, and they didn't come back. Leia is gone for certain. Ben is gone with almost no chance of being seen again even if he is alive.

You thought back to the night you'd met him. You were five, he was six. Probably too young to be participating in an interplanetary exchange program, but hey, who can tell the adults anything once they've convinced themselves that it's "for your own good". Your parents had packed you a little suitcase, taken you to the nearest spaceport, and the next thing you knew you were being strapped into a seat on a shuttle by a nice lady with a sympathetic smile and what seemed to be an endless supply of juice boxes and Disney movies. Your memory of your arrival at the Organa-Solo home is fuzzy, but you do remember how terrified you were to be away from home without your parents; how you felt like you had to throw up, crying so hard you'd gasp for air between sobs. Leia, sweet thing that she was, had made you a warm drink with a mild sedative in it while Ben got to work building a fort out of pillows and blankets and setting up a perimeter with all his soldiers and monsters. You had wrapped yourself up in your own favorite blanket at the back of the fort, finally calming as the drink worked its magic, settling down to sleep behind him while he sat with a toy gun, guarding the entrance. You woke up the next morning with a new best friend.

From then on, you'd trade off a couple times a year. You'd hiked the same game preserve they'd disappeared in many times. He'd spent sunny summer days romping through the woods with you, jumping on your family's gigantic trampoline and playing video games. He'd been on Earth for Christmas a few times, even. You loved one another as much as any two kids could, inseparable until you were inevitably whisked away to your own planets again. Even then you'd holo-chat as often as you could. The adults were shocked when, after teasing you about getting married when you grew up, rather than get embarrassed and protest the idea you'd simply agreed that yes, you absolutely would. You both knew what sex was by then, and you swore to each other later that you'd never do something so _gross_, but you made a pact there and then that you'd get married and stay best friends forever (and also to buy every single Nintendo game to ever come out once you were big people with big people money, but that was beside the point.)

Puberty came and went and that whole sex idea started to maybe, almost, possibly, _probably_ have some merit, but you only got as far as your first kiss. That was your last visit, and apart from the kissing you parted the same way you always had. You can still see his lanky, gangly, halfway-through-his-first-growth-spurt limbs carrying him up the shuttle ramp as if he was going to his death. If only he knew. If only any of you could have known.

========

_It's hard to keep the rainclouds out_

_When the windows never close_

_And the house feels like a graveyard now_

_Like the floorboards hide the bones_

_And I have lost your face_

_It slips between my fingers now_

_And all the world is gray_

_As though you took the colors with you_

_When you went and passed away_

You don't know why you do it to yourself, listening to this song. It ruins your entire day every single time you do. It's been years, and so much has changed. Your body, your hobbies, your habits. The only constant is the dull ache every time you think of him. 

_All my blood runs the same as it did before_

_Only difference is now I can't feel it anymore_

Fuck, if that wasn't what it had felt like since then. 

_So I collected all our plans and crimes_

_And set them all alight_

_The only thing that bound me to this place_

_You took with you when you died_

_So goodbye, goodbye_

It's the fucking _goodbyes_ that get you, really get you, every time. You break down, wracked with sobs. You wish you'd never had to say that last goodbye. You wish you could have seen him grow up. You wish you knew what he'd have looked like as an adult, what pitch his voice would have eventually decided on once puberty played itself out. Even fifteen years later, life sometimes feels like a slog that you just aren't up to without him at your side.

You'd hit 28 this year. Married briefly, divorced painfully but amicably when you both realized that it just couldn't work with Ben's ghost hanging like a pall over the relationship. It wasn't fair to either of you, but especially not to your ex-husband. You still felt guilty about it from time to time.

You sigh as your datapad blips; you're in no state for a holochat, so you ignore it in favor of staring at the wall. It blips again, and you ignore it again. It's only when the notification assaults your ears for the third time that you slap your hand down on the pad, finally turning it over to see who's house must be burning the fuck down.

It's the organization who runs the exchange programs. The nightmare of your last contact with these people plays out in your head even as your hand moves to accept the call. The liason who'd matched you up with Ben all those years ago shimmers into view, much older but still recognizable. She takes a breath. You hold yours.

**"They found him."**

You're speechless as the call ends, shocked into the sort of numbness that often comes with the possibility of false hope and the knowledge that you won't survive if that hope is shattered. There were no details to be shared early on; it was only after several agonizing hours you finally got another call from the hospital on Chandrila. That's how you learned what had happened, now that they'd 'found him'. 

Which was a load of _bullshit_. The authorities hadn't found him, he'd had to find his own way home. He'd been kidnapped and trafficked after watching his mother die, sold into a life of slavery. He'd been forced to work on an asteroid mine for two years; once that project was completed, he was sold again, this time to some sick fuck who ran the fighting pits on some backwater planet in wild space no one had ever heard of. Ben's slight build wasn't a problem; after all, he was still growing, and his "owner" had tricks up his sleeves. 

"He has a severe phobia of needles, I'm afraid, from being restrained and injected with a cocktail of growth hormones and steroids. He agreed to be caught up on vaccinations so he could be on a shuttle your way as soon as possible, but had to be sedated quite heavily. He's... Well, his appearance may shock you a bit, but once he's awake and alert, we'll put you in touch. He's desperate to see you again."

You pace back and forth in your kitchen, fists clenching and teeth gritted. Stars, you were happy, of course you were, but the anger is overwhelming you at this particular moment. All those years stolen, all the time you'd spent mourning, all the time he'd spent suffering under the lash. They took a sweet boy and made him into a monster, pumping him full of shit that made him unnaturally large and aggressive and forcing him to kill for people's entertainment. He'd fought his way to freedom at the age of twenty-three only to discover when he was on the outside that_ no one there knew where Chandrila was_, that no one had ever heard of it, ever heard of Earth, that even as a free man he was still a prisoner of his circumstances. You still had no clue how the hell he got off that planet and back home. 

But he was alive. He was alive and hell-bent on seeing you again. You settle in for a long night on the couch distracting yourself with mindless TV. It might be a while, but soon, he would wake up.

Soon, you'd hear his voice. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song is All is Well (Goodbye, Goodbye) by Radical Face. It's from the perspective of a woman who's husband has come home from some long ago battle with mortal wounds and what life becomes after he bleeds out in her arms. Beautiful song, but terribly sad and if you've lost anyone important it'll haunt your fucking dreams. Find it [here. ](https://youtu.be/yHVN4qXkLA0)
> 
> Title is a reference to a Porcupine Tree song of the same name, which was the other contender for which song I used. You can find that one  
[here.](https://youtu.be/-xhJx6UR4Vw)  
Also fucking depressing. I recommend both.


	2. Chapter 2

It took Ben a moment to find it when you picked up, but his voice, it turns out, is like silk wrapped around iron. He had called using voice-chat, unwilling to let you see what he'd become, so the deep, rich tones were all you had of him at first. But oh, they were enough. He was alive and whole and ready to put it all behind him, to just be your best friend again. It took a good half hour before his desire to see you overcame his reluctance to reciprocate, but he finally agreed to drop voice-only in favor of holochat. 

You honestly didn't have any expectations going in; you hadn't seen him in person since your early teens and you'd been flat-out told that his appearance had changed drastically. You didn't know what to expect, so you just kept your mind blank as his image blinked into existence.

'Holy _fuck_' is your first thought, followed immediately by 'handsome', 'Oh my God that scar', 'Jesus, he's probably covered in them', 'but it's _him_, that's _him_', and finally 'God, he's gorgeous'.

It was undeniably true. The round, boyish face from years back had matured into hard angles and planes, and even the jagged scar that ran all the way across his face, down his neck, and underneath his shirt couldn't ruin the vision. He'd always kept his hair long, and that hadn't changed; the raven locks fall about his face in the most perfect way imaginable. His shoulders are broad and his massive frame is still well-muscled, even years after his last forced injection. There aren't any other obvious scars you can see, much to your relief. His eyes bore into yours as he swallows hard, overcome with emotion. You don't give him a chance to feel ashamed of his scarred face . You burst into giddy, breathy laughter. "Hi, Ben." 

His eyes rake over your image, and he immediately responds in kind, his face lighting up in a grin. "Holy shit, is that... Are you wearing a _skirt_? Since _when_?"

"Since now I get to decide what they look like and how long they are."

He manages one more laugh before his self-consciousness returns, and he drops his gaze. You aren't sure what to say to reassure him that isn't something along the lines of 'Oh no, don't worry, you're definitely super hot' or 'No, really, I'm in fucking trouble over here', so you change the subject.

"I made a playlist of music from our favorite games when we were kids. Wanna listen?"

His face lights up in another grin. 

========

It's now 2 AM, and you're still up talking; yammering away and listening to music late into the night in the way you'd always wanted to as kids but never had been allowed to. Sure, you're tired, but it feels good.

Ben certainly doesn't have much from the recent past that he wants to talk about, so you simply reminisce. He laughs in delight when you play the intro music to Banjo-Kazooie and sheds silent tears when you play Final Fantasy II's Prelude, remembering how you'd sit at the title screen just to hear the song as kids. You tell him that you'd found out the game was actually Final Fantasy IV in Japan, and that they'd dumbed it down quite a bit for American audiences, and he scoffs. "That game was fucking hard!"

"I mean... We were like seven."

"Have you played it since?"

"Yes."

"Did you beat it?"

"... No."

========

By 3 AM you've moved on to more serious topics, and he'd started to open up about his escape from slavery. Hopped up on steroids and synthetic testosterone, one day the rage that had been building for years had boiled over and he'd just snapped after leaving the arena he'd fought in earlier. He'd been regarded as well broken for years by then, so the guards escorting him back to his cell were in no way expecting him to ignite his lightsaber before they could confiscate it. They were dead before they even knew what was happening. Soon enough, so was the slaver who ran the fighting ring along with every single underling who was unfortunate enough to be in the path of his destruction. He then helped the other enslaved pit fighters escape before walking away from his life in chains for good. However, finding himself marooned on a primitive, filthy, lawless unnamed planet sent him spiraling into despair. He found that the urge toward violence hadn't left him, and he often went looking for a fight. Sex soon proved to be an even better distraction from his misery, and this went in for years until he finally had the encounter that jarred him out of his self-destructive spiral. 

"As far as I could tell I was never going home. All I wanted to do was crack every skull that crossed me and bed every woman who'd have me. Then one night at some shitty bar I'd been skulking around, a woman came in who I _immediately_ recognized as the one who'd met up with us after I was kidnapped with three other terrified kids in tow. Well, I wasn't about to let her live, but I didn't want to attract the attention of the people she worked for either. So I followed her home. Planned for a quiet assassination, got a fight instead. Turns out she had her own saber and knew how to use the fucking thing. I got her, but she carved my face up good and if I hadn't been able to drag myself up the road to the single run-down little hospital in town, I'd probably be dead. So, yeah... That's where the scar came from. And honestly, that was my wake-up call. My mother... She would never have wanted me to die like that."

You were already having a hard enough time imagining him killing anyone, but to hear him talk so casually about it... He wasn't just a fighter and a killer. He had gotten _good_ at it. He had to, of course he did, or he never would have survived. And, as sick to your stomach as all the rest makes you feel, you can't help but be impressed with this particular part of his history. 

"So... You got into a lightsaber duel with a person who kidnapped and sold children for a living, took a severe near-fatal wound to the face, and you still took her out and lived to tell about it?"

He shrugs, seemingly unsure as to how you want him to react. "Um... Yeah, I guess?"

You lean forward a bit, grinning. "That's fucking _awesome_."

Despite being pleasantly surprised by your approval, he clearly wants to move on from the current subject. So you start to fill him in on your life since he'd been gone, downplaying just how much you'd struggled to cope with his loss. He listens with rapt attention, laughing at your stories of teenage shenanigans and asking about how your family has been. He gives you no end of shit when you tell him you're divorced. 

"I can't believe you got married. We had a pact!"

You laugh, knowing that he isn't serious. "I literally thought you were dead. What do you want from me?"

He crossed his arms, pretending to pout. "An apology."

"How about a 'fuck you'? Seriously though, Ben... It never could have worked. I knew going into it that it wasn't the right thing to be doing, but everyone was pressuring me, telling me I'd be alone forever if I didn't move on. But I couldn't move on. And then we split, and I had yet another heartbreak reminding me of what could have been if I'd only married you like we'd planned."

His expression changes as the conversation shifts from lighthearted banter to... Well, you being a total downer. You're trying to think of a way to bring the mood back up when he speaks.

"It's not too late."

"I... _what_?"

"You heard me."

Your heart pounds in your chest. Is he really...?

"Ben Solo, are you asking me to marry you?"

He throws his hands up, then runs one of them through that beautiful hair of his, slightly agitated now that he's just come right out with it. "Well... Yeah. Look, I know it's fast-" 

"This time yesterday I literally still thought you were dead." 

He throws up his hands again. "Look, I just... I don't want to ever see the day where you and I aren't the most important people in each others' lives, now that I actually have one again. Isn't that basically why we agreed to it as kids? And seriously, we don't even have to sleep in the same bed, not if you don't want to-"

The parallels between this conversation about marriage and the one you had when you were eight years old aren't lost on you, but this time you know better than to think you won't be sharing a bed, even if he thinks pretending otherwise makes it less awkward. "Ben, you goddamn lunatic, yes. Yes, I'll marry you."

He stares back at you, seemingly at a loss for what to do now that his proposal has been accepted. "Okay... When?"

"When are you coming to Earth?"

He blinks, running his hand through his hair again. "There's another shuttle leaving next week, but I can't make it. I have to get my affairs in order, see what they can do about getting my mother's assets released to me... It's kind of a mess."

Obstacles be damned, the wheels in your head are turning now and since the entire crazy train that is this situation is clearly about to jump the track anyway... 

"That just means we have time to set it up for the day you come back, provided you don't want anything fancy." 

He scoffs. "Fuck fancy. I like where your head's at. We've lost enough time."

"Yes, we have. Honeymoon plans?"

"I say we build a blanket fort in your living room, order like ten pizzas, and play Nintendo all night. Does the 64 still work?"

"It's in storage, but I have a computer with emulators that will play all our old favorites."

"Did they make any more Zelda games?"

You cackle. "Oh, honey. Let me tell you a little bit about Nintendo's latest console and a little game called Breath of the Wild."

There's no more talk of fighting and killing or near-death experiences, weddings or marriage or sharing a bed. For now, all that matters is seeing his head explode as he watches the launch trailer you've sent him for the Nintendo Switch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Banjo-Kazooie Intro](https://youtu.be/NjYWVia5bAM)  
  
[Final Fantasy IV Prelude](https://youtu.be/40RkVCi-qaE) (If you aren't familiar with this series, be sure to listen past the 35 second mark. That's when it gets really good.)


	3. Chapter 3

The wedding was, in fact, an incredibly simple affair. You shocked everyone you knew with the fact that Ben was alive, that you were engaged, that it was only a matter of a few weeks before your years-long separation would end at the altar, and that they were all invited to witness it. Everyone seemed to understand, much to your relief, that there wouldn't be a big reception that night, that the party for everyone would have to wait a while until you'd had time to settle. Ben didn't want one at all, to tell the truth; he was still self-conscious about his appearance and thought standing in front of everyone at the wedding was bad enough without having to endure a whole crowd of people who'd spent years thinking he was dead speculating on where his scar had come from whenever they thought he wasn't looking. "Immediately" was too much, but he'd agreed to "eventually", and that would just have to be good enough for everybody. 

Truth be told, neither of you cared much about the specifics. You'd settled on a quick ceremony at a small chapel with standard vows, plain gold rings, and a dress you already owned, and you'd made a bouquet that morning from tiger lilies you'd found by the side of the road. You stood shaking with anticipation, waiting to walk down the aisle. Waiting to look upon him, the real him, instead of just a shimmering hologram. Waiting to get this bit over with so the two of you could just get on with the really important things, like playing Mario Kart and going to movies, cooking together and helping him find new favorite things now that he had his life back.

Nothing could have prepared you for that walk. The sight of him knocked you completely sideways and tore your composure to shreds. You didn't even make it the whole way, in fact; mere seconds after locking eyes with him the bouquet fell to the ground forgotten and your measured steps were thrown to the wind. You ran to one another, meeting halfway up the aisle in an embrace that brought you both to your knees, shaking with silent tears. The officiant, rather than ruin the moment, had simply stepped down from the altar and married you both right there where you knelt, and you'd exchanged rings with wildly shaking hands. The 'kiss the bride' bit caught you both off guard, and you'd stared at each other wide-eyed, both instantly coming to the awkward realization that 'Oh shit, we forgot to talk about this part' . Ben had recovered first, leaning forward and quickly brushing his lips against yours, and you quickly buried your face in his neck afterward to hide the furious blush while everyone around you applauded wildly. There wasn't a dry eye in that chapel, even long after he'd lifted you effortlessly in his arms and carried you off to your new life together. 

"Well, this place is _aggressively_ 'you'," he'd laughed upon walking into your apartment and coming face-to-face with a Legend of Zelda poster, then a Super Mario Bros. poster, and finally one with Pikachu at the center. Twenty minutes later two extra large pizzas with extra cheese and pepperoni were on their way, and you were busy piling blankets and cushions from all over the house into a fort that was big enough for you both. Getting the ceiling up high enough to accommodate Ben's gigantic frame was the hardest part, and you'd ended up having to stack chairs on top of one another and hope they'd hold. You finished up just in time to welcome the arrival of the pizza. Originally, you'd planned on putting The Lion King on while you ate, but you both ended up focusing entirely on the food. Even Disney couldn't measure up to watching your best friend take the first bite of hot, gooey, deliciously greasy pizza he'd had in years. His eyes had rolled back so far in his head that you almost thought he was passing out from the sheer pleasure of tasting it. You ended up eating the entire thing, leaving the second just outside the fort to be eaten cold for breakfast.

Then it was game time. After thoroughly de-greasing your hands, you took your Switch out of its dock and handed it to Ben, laughing as he repeatedly dropped it back in to watch the image on its screen immediately jump up to the TV. He was waffling back and forth about whether he wanted to replay Ocarina of Time before jumping into Breath of the Wild, so you opted to jump back to the Wii U and start with Yoshi's Wooly World. This let him get used to the feel of a controller in his massive hands after so long and gave you the option of co-op play if you wanted to jump in. For the time being, though, you simply leaned back and watched him enjoy being a regular person again.

**6 PM: MARIO KART ONLINE**

"_Who_ the _fuck_ threw that shell!?" Ben's voice booms out from under the blankets as he goes careening off the track. 

"Wasn't me. This time, at least."

He throws his next red shell at you anyway, and you retaliate by banana-sniping him from behind, sending him right off the track again.

"Holy shit! Fuck, I'm not even mad, that was well fucking aimed."

"Maybe we should try Battle Mode before Lakitu extorts any more coins from us."

**6:45 PM: SMASH ULTIMATE**

"... Who the fuck even are half of these characters!?"

**7:15 PM YOUTUBE DETOUR: A TWENTY MINUTE VIDEO EXPLAINING THE PLOT OF THE KINGDOM HEARTS SERIES**

Complete stunned silence reigns, except for the pause menu music playing in the background. Ben has no words, only intense confusion. It's okay. You've watched that video at least ten times and you still have no idea what the fuck is going on in Kingdom Hearts.

**7:45 PM: THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD**

Ben ultimately decides he wants to at least see the beginning of the game, even if he waits to play through it for now. He cries when Link walks to the ledge overlooking Hyrule and the title pops up because it's just that beautiful.

**10 PM: STARDEW VALLEY**

"This is it. This is my life now. I no longer exist outside of Pelican Town."

"I warned you, and you should have believed me when you saw I had over a thousand hours racked up in this game."

"...Just one more day."

**5 AM: BANJO-KAZOOIE (ON AN EMULATOR BECAUSE LET'S FACE IT IT'LL NEVER COME TO THE SWITCH)**

"God, this music. You remember that one Christmas when I was here, the year this game came out?"

"I remember us sitting on the floor in the light of the Christmas tree eating ice cream and speculating about what was in the presents with this song stuck in our heads."

A snowman wearing a giant hat and an obnoxious grin pelts Banjo with a snowball.

"Oh fuck you, snowman! Yeah, honestly that's... That's one of my favorite memories. One of the places I'd go in my head when I couldn't take it anymore."

Your eyes shift from the screen to his face. He's still intent on dodging the snowballs, but there's a sadness etched into his features that wasn't there before. You lean into him, dropping your head to his shoulder.

"It's always been one of my favorite memories, too."

His focus is lost, and he swears as he's hit again, sending Banjo and Kazooie into the icy waters of Freezeezy Peak. He pauses the game.

Suddenly it would seem that the mood has shifted; not to sadness, as his prior expression suggested it had, but to something else entirely. You lift your head from his shoulder to meet his gaze. His eyes drop to your lips, and you realize you've got a choice to make. You can turn away, go back to the games, maybe suggest that you both just get some sleep and revisit this later when you're a bit more prepared for it. Or, you can just fucking kiss him like you know you want to.

You choose the latter. You're vaguely aware of the soft thump and rattle of the controller sliding out of his hands and to the floor as your lips meet. He's all adult now; the fact that you've been sitting in a blanket fort for hours playing video games like a couple of ten-year-olds has become irrelevant. You shudder as he deepens the kiss, shifting his weight and gently guiding you toward the floor. Your hand flails around looking for the remote, and he breaks the kiss long enough to find it, quickly muting Banjo-Kazooie's cartoonish pause menu song before it can ruin the mood. Then he's on you again, and you revel in the warmth and weight of his body as you wrap your arms around him.

It's shocking, really, the sudden change in his demeanor from relaxed, playful gamer to... Well, whatever this wonderful version of him was. He's taken full control, pinning one of your wrists to the ground as he trails searing kisses up the side of your neck. Your arousal is obvious, almost embarrassingly so, and he growls as you squirm underneath him and let out a soft moan. Still, it seems to shake him back to reality, and he pulls back a bit as he realizes where this is going to go if he doesn't stop.

You don't want it to stop, so you point out the obvious. "You know... _Technically_, tonight is our wedding night..."

His eyes widen, and the snarky response about how _technically_ it's five in the morning that would have come from non-horny Ben is unable to find its way to the surface. A breathy "You fucking serious?" is all he manages. 

"This should have happened years ago. So yes, I'm perfectly serious."

His expression morphs from shock to raw desire, and his tenuous hold on his control dissolves. His hands are suddenly everywhere, and you let out a giddy laugh as it hits you that this is it, the nightmare really is over, yesterday wasn't just a fever dream of some sort. This is your life now. Ben assumes you're laughing because you're ticklish, and takes the opportunity to move his hand up under your pajama shirt under the guise of tickling you further. You'd worn a sports bra for modesty (ha), and his thumb traces the edge of it momentarily before sliding underneath it and hiking it straight up.

The fact that he _really_ isn't pulling any punches with this is both thrilling and terrifying. You know he's no virgin; in fact, the way he'd spoken of his post-slavery adulthood almost made it sound like he had numbers in the triple digits. You're not exactly a virgin either, but the speed with which things are progressing is intimidating enough to make you feel like one.

As if on cue, he seems to sense your apprehension, and he slows his roll, moving from on top of you to lie on the floor along your side. His hand slides from under your shirt for now, coming to rest on your hip as he returns to kissing your neck, slower this time. He waits until you're squirming again before he starts to move it back, and this time you're ready, arching your back to press your breast into his palm.

It isn't long before you feel his hand move down your belly to come to rest on the inside of your thigh, and even though he gives you a moment before he applies any pressure, you still tense when he tries to gently coax your legs apart, your breath catching in your throat as he nuzzles his nose soothingly against the side of your neck. 

"Shh, it's alright... Be a good girl and relax for me," he purrs, and _fuck_, the casual dominance and the sound of his voice ignite a firestorm of lust that rolls down the entire length of your spine, spurring you to yield to him. He moves so that he's cradling you against his chest with his left arm, leaving his right hand free to trail up the inside of your thigh and come to rest between your legs over your pajama pants. You cant your hips up instantly, chasing the firm pressure and intense warmth of his fingers as he slowly moves them against the fabric.

He stops and shifts his weight long enough to lose the shirt he's wearing, and you reach around to run your fingers up his broad back as he leans back over you to relieve you of your own top. You try not to flinch as you feel the scars that stretch across his skin, marring his flesh in a pattern that you immediately realize must be lashmarks.

Being confronted with stark evidence of his horrific abuse is enough to take you out of the moment, and by the time he's pulled your sports bra over your head, tears are welling in your eyes. You wrap your arms around him then; pressing yourself against him and interrupting him just as he's about to duck his head to your breasts. He glances up, momentarily confused before comprehension dawns on his face.

"Hey..." he soothes. "It was a long time ago."

You draw in a shaky breath, wiping your eyes. "I know, Ben, but _fuck_... Do they hurt?"

He shrugs, looking away. "Surprisingly, not much. They said I probably have nerve damage."

Your horror at that flatly stated bit of information doesn't get a chance to surface before he hooks his forearm around your waist, pulling your ass right out from under you and pressing you back down to the floor. "Never stopped me before," he says, pressing his lips to yours. "Not gonna stop me now."

Well, you can't fucking argue with that.

Your recovery is swift. His fingers soon find their way underneath the loose elastic of your pajama pants, and he toys with the edge of your underwear. You push his hand away, smirking up at him as you move to pull them off. "There is no way you're gonna get those meat mitts of yours inside my panties without ripping them."

He snorts, his eyes never leaving your body. "Meat mitts? Really?"

"It's an apt description."

His indignation deserts him as you toss the last of your clothing into the corner of the fort, leaving you bare before him. "_Fuck_."

"Your turn."

He snorts again, quickly taking hold of your wrists and pinning you once again to the floor. "I think you're forgetting who's in charge here."

Oh, you love this game. You stare up at him, defiant. "Says who?"

"Says my superior size and strength," he replies, releasing your wrists in order to position himself alongside you, his hand once again making its way south. You gasp as his fingers make contact, and he huffs a laugh. "Along with how ridiculously wet you are."

Fuck being in charge and fuck the back and forth; his fingers sliding through your folds is the only thing in the universe that matters now. You're becoming more and more desperate for penetration by the second, and he knows it. He teases at your opening, smirking down at you with the most insufferable look on that beautiful scarred face of his.

You pout up at him. "Why are you being so mean?"

"Why are you getting so wet?"

"Beeeeeen,"

He heaves an exaggerated sigh, as if extremely put out by your demands. "Fiiiine." 

You never had been much for fingering yourself, not since experiencing it at the hands of a member of the opposite sex, who in general tended to have much larger, well, hands. Your own fingers always seemed so small, so inadequate; they were never able to reach the right spots or apply the right amount of pressure.

Ben's fingers did not have this problem. He entered first with one, then two, and he wasted no time in figuring out exactly what spots to hit and how hard to hit them. God, you needed to cum, but penetration alone wasn't going to get you there, no matter how good it felt. He notices that your own hand has started moving downward almost immediately, and he instantly responds with all sorts of filthy encouragement.

"Fuck, yes, that's so fucking _hot_... That's it, sweetheart... Come on, touch yourself for me."

He's hard as a rock against your thigh as you careen straight over the edge, shuddering against him as you ride it out. It's one of the most intense orgasms you've ever had in your life, and by time your brain has finally re-engaged he's already lost his pants and is licking his fingers. You reach up to caress his face as he leans down to kiss along the side of your neck again, squirming pleasurably underneath him as you ride the endorphin high. It slips out before you can think to stop it.

"I love you."

You know you've said the wrong thing when he freezes, his lips stilling against your skin. He continues after a second, but something is just _off_. It isn't until you feel the tears fall that you realize just how badly you've fucked up.

"Ben?" He's pulling away now, and you sit up beside him as he pulls his knees to his chest. "I'm sorry," he sobs, and it isn't until your eyes settle on the scars on his back that you realize why he's reacting like this. 

"Ben... When was the last time you heard those words?"

He shrugs, scrubbing at his eyes and shaking his head, trying to regain his composure.

"I mean... I don't fucking remember it, but probably from my mom the night before the hike. I'm sorry, it's not that I don't, because I do, I swear I do, and-"

You wrap your arms around him, cutting off his babbling. "I know, Ben. I know you do. You don't have to say it back until you're ready to."

He leans into you for a minute, seeming to calm a bit, and you peel one of the blankets off the floor and wrap it around his shoulders. It's only then that he seems to remember what you'd been doing, and he buries his face in his hands." I'm sorry, I don't think I can..."

You stroke his hair, urging him to lie down beside you. "Don't you dare apologize. Come on, let's get some sleep. We have all the time in the world."

He seems to take solace in the truth of that statement; either that or he's simply too exhausted to argue. You fish the remote out of the crumpled blankets and turn off the TV before settling back down behind him, curling into his back.

"I could go find my old dinosaur toys and we could guard the entrance while you sleep. You know, return the favor."

There's a beat of silence before you hear his small snort of laughter, muffled by his pillow. "Shut up. Go to sleep."

Relief floods you at the return of his sense of humor. You debate setting an alarm so you don't sleep all day, but can't bring yourself to leave his side to look for your phone, and you're both asleep within minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The aforementioned Kingdom Hearts video (don't say I didn't warn you) ](https://youtu.be/99hSFcl5LK4)
> 
> [Freezeezy Peak theme](https://youtu.be/bKv9WeS8BOs) This one's at the top of my "I've finally gotten sick of traditional Christmas music" list every year, and the memory described in this chapter is one of mine, from the year this game came out. One of my happiest Christmas memories, even if I was by myself eating that ice cream and humming this song. 


End file.
